solar flares

carl sagan

via thetalkinghead

nasa's ideas to get more funding are getting ridiculous

i dunno if i'm buyin it. diamonds in uranus?

Neptune and Uranus May Have Oceans of Liquid Diamond
Future humans won't have to wait to travel to Pandora for the chance to mine unobtanium, because Neptune and Uranus may have diamond icebergs floating atop liquid diamond seas closer to home. The surprise finding comes from the first detailed measurements of the melting point of diamond, Discovery News reports.

Scientists zapped diamond with a laser at pressures 40 million times greater than the Earth's atmosphere at sea level, and then slowly reduced both temperature and pressure. They eventually found that diamond behaves like water during freezing and melting, and that chunks of diamond will float in the liquid diamond.

Diamond oceans could explain why the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune appear tilted so far off their north-south axes, given that they could deflect or tilt the magnetic fields. Both planets may consist of up to 10 percent carbon, the elemental building block of diamond.

Scientists won't know for sure until they can launch missions to the planets, or try to simulate planetary conditions on Earth. But we'd wager it's worth a shot for NASA, if there's any chance that U.S. space missions could begin to pay for themselves in the distant future.

via popsci

russian scientists, what will they think of next?

this is their best idea since the booze pill.
Monkey to be sent to Mars
The Russians first succeeded in putting monkeys into orbit in 1983. “We have plans to return to space,” said Zurab Mikvabia, director of the Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy in Georgia which supplied apes for the programme in the 1980s.

The Institute is in preliminary talks with Russia's Cosmonautics Academy about preparing monkeys for a simulated Mars mission that could lay the groundwork for sending an ape to the Red Planet, he said.

Mr Mikvabia said: "Earlier this programme was aimed at sending cosmonauts, people (to Mars). "But given the length of the flight to Mars, and given the cosmic rays for which we don't have adequate protection over such a long trip, discussions have focused recently on sending an ape instead of a person."
via

ohhhh snap. nasa's funding woes might be over.

NASA finds 'significant' water on moon

NASA said Friday it had discovered water on the moon, opening "a new chapter" that could allow for the development of a lunar space station.

The discovery is based on preliminary data collected when the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, intentionally crashed October 9 into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus crater near the moon's south pole.

full story via CNN

oh snap

savin up the skrilla for this one.
Space hotel says it's on schedule to open in 2012

BARCELONA, Spain - A company behind plans to open the first hotel in space says it is on target to accept its first paying guests in 2012 despite critics questioning the investment and time frame for the multi-billion dollar project.
full story via MSNBC

russians planning manned nuclear rockets to mars

Russia hopes nuclear ship will fly humans to Mars

Russia should build a new nuclear-powered spaceship for prospective manned mission to Mars and other planets, the nation's space chief said Thursday.

Anatoly Perminov first proposed building the ship at a government meeting Wednesday but didn't explain its purpose. President Dmitry Medvedev backed the project and urged the government to find the money.

via Yahoo!

nasa bombing the moon. seriously.

and they wonder why their funding gets cut. there's gotta be an easier way to find out if there's water on the moon.
NASA's mission to bomb the Moon

NASA will tomorrow launch a spectacular mission to bomb the Moon. Their LCROSS mission will blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a missile that will blast a hole in the lunar surface at twice the speed of a bullet.
full story here via scientific american

nixon's speech if apollo 11 didn't make it back

via boingboing

night sky

japanese spending $21 billion on power plant in space

wtf...
Mitsubishi, IHI to Join $21 Bln Space Solar Project
Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and IHI Corp. will join a 2 trillion yen ($21 billion) Japanese project intending to build a giant solar-power generator in space within three decades and beam electricity to earth.

A research group representing 16 companies, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Inc., will spend four years developing technology to send electricity without cables in the form of microwaves, according to a statement on the trade ministry’s Web site today.
via bloomberg

awesome website

http://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/

the mayans were right

this is how the world will end in 2012 (see last paragraph)
New ion engine could reach Mars in 39 days

Last week astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins both called for NASA to make Mars its next goal. But the standard chemical propulsion system would take six months to get to Mars and cost hundreds of billions of dollars. However, a new ion plasma rocket being developed by another former astronaut, Franklin Chang-Diaz, could potentially reach Mars in just 39 days using a fraction of the fuel.

Chang-Diaz’s prototype doesn’t achieve propulsion by combusting fuel but, rather, by superheating atoms to create and expel a plasma plume.

Named VASIMR, the system consists of three linked magnetic cells. The first stage works a bit like a kettle, heating the atoms of a neutral gas like argon with a radio frequency (RF) generator until electrons “boil” off, creating plasma.

The plasma is now very hot – about 50,000 degrees Celsius – but not hot enough to produce efficient thrust. The second stage of VASIMR acts as an amplifier, further energizing the plasma using electromagnetic waves. By now, the plasma reaches about a million degrees, comparable to the center of the sun.

The third and final stage is converts the energy into directed motion and, ultimately, high velocity thrust. And, in case you’re wondering how anything so hot could be possibly contained, that’s one of the reasons the cells are all magnetic. A magnetic field not only helps heat plasma but also contains it, so it won’t ever actually touch anything.

Chang-Diaz and his colleagues are readying VASIMR for a 2012 test with NASA on the International Space Station. It could just be the beginning of a new power in long-distance space travel.

via